Big Ten football | Delany: Changes needed in NCAA

CHICAGO — Jim Delany offered little of the saber-rattling that marked the recent speeches of other conference commissioners in regards to the NCAA. Yet even with a more diplomatic tone, the Big Ten commissioner echoed the sentiment of fellow power brokers that the group’s structure will be different, perhaps within a year.

“There’s a lot of political momentum for change at the NCAA,” Delany said. “I don’t think there’s a major conference that disagrees with that. To be honest with you, I don’t think there’s a mid-major conference that disagrees with that. And from all of my conversations with all of my colleagues, they think change is at hand.”

Issues due to economic disparity among membership have created such recent talk, leading to increased speculation that the five richest conferences — the Big Ten, Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Pac-12 — could possibly break away from the NCAA.

Delany didn’t endorse such a radical move, nor did commissioners Mike Slive of the SEC, Bob Bowlsby of the Big 12 and John Swofford of the ACC while they openly called for the NCAA to re-examine its governing structure.

Those commissioners still support the NCAA and its role in overseeing college athletics, but they want an idea considered to create a new subdivision for schools such as Ohio State that have larger athletic budgets than the other 330-plus Division I members.

“We need to be able to have a structure that allows us to do what we can afford to do, with an educational model for our athletes,” Delany said.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said in May that the growing economic disparity in the 125-member Football Bowl Subdivision is one of the organization’s prime issues. He acknowledged then that consideration for a new subdivision “would be healthy and the right thing to do” but would have to be decided by member institutions.

“I think bigger conferences have different issues to deal with than smaller conferences,” Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer said. “Some of the recruiting legislation that we have is different at different levels. … As far as future NCAA legislation or rules or conversations, I think it’s going to be more focused on the teams that deal with those same issues.”

Bowlsby was more bombastic than Delany when he spoke on Monday of the need for change within the NCAA, suggesting that it’s time to consider establishing new federations to separate sports and how they are supervised.

“I thought Bob Bowlsby made a great point,” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said. “You can’t have the same rules for field hockey as you do for football and basketball. There has to be a consideration to rethinking and retooling what we have.

“It’s very complicated, what we’re talking about. If you can’t keep up and have the wherewithal — and you don’t have big stadiums and you don’t have big TV contracts — then maybe you should be playing in a separate division.”

Delany stressed that any change to the NCAA’s structure should include discussion about time demands placed on athletes, issues regarding at-risk students and considering lifetime support for degree completion.

“I’m in favor of whatever restructuring that will lead to what I would consider to be resolving or improving certain areas where I think we’re weak,” he said.

Like Slive a week earlier, Delany reiterated the need for the NCAA to pass legislation calling for athletes on full scholarship to be paid an annual stipend to cover costs of attendance that go beyond a grant-in-aid’s coverage of room, board, books and tuition.

“We could figure out a way to do this,” Delany said.

Delany was also asked about the class-action federal lawsuit against the NCAA that was brought by former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon. That pending suit seeks compensation for use of college athletes’ names and likenesses.

“I don’t think that the O’Bannon case represents the best interests of intercollegiate athletics,” Delany said. “I don’t know how it will be resolved. It will be litigated, and I think it will be litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, if the plaintiffs are successful. I don’t think there’s any compromise on that.”